Exchanges In Stock-index Contract Battle

The Chicago debut of over-the-counter stock-index contracts is looking more like a circus.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade are launching the contracts Oct. 25 in their most heated competitive battle in several years.

To lure reporters to its opening-day ceremonies, the Merc Thursday sent out bunches of oversized orange and purple balloons. Accompanying them was a taped invitation sung in finger-snapping style by a Merc public relations staffer.

The Board of Trade, meanwhile, wasn`t sitting on its hands. At a press briefing on its OTC stock-index futures, the exchange handed out digital clocks, shaped like computer terminals, which flash the contract`s name alternately with the time and date.

Thursday`s salvos were part of an unprecedented marketing blitz by the two exchanges, which are spending an estimated $4 million to promote the contracts.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange, which had previously put plans for options on OTC indexes on a back burner, said Thursday that it will participate in the Oct. 25 opening. The CBOE and the Merc, under licensing agreements with Standard & Poor`s Corp., plan to trade contracts on an S&P index.

The Board of Trade will offer futures on a National Association of Securities Dealers index under an agreement with the NASD.